


Late Night Drive

by CravenWyvern



Series: Failed Step One [1]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drabble, Gen, Hinted reincarnation, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 06:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13921092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern
Summary: Wilson almost crashes the car (more than once)There's no one else on the road.





	Late Night Drive

**Author's Note:**

> I've literally been planning this idea for months
> 
> And only just now gotten myself to write something small for it.
> 
> Will the real story ever be written? *makes an "i don't know noise"*

Tonight is rather nice, Wilson thought to himself, blinking tiredly out into the darkness, trying to keep himself focused on the road. Maybe it had been a good idea for him to have gotten his drivers license all those years ago; he had always hated driving, will always hate it, but maybe as long as the road was empty he'd be fine. In fact, it was possible he was enjoying himself.

And then Willow woke up with a shriek of fear and almost made him veer off the road into a passing tree.

Thankfully that didn't happen, but Wilsons knuckles were white on the steering wheel and he might have bitten his tongue and also he felt like he was going to have a heart attack.

Which wasn't all too impossible, though he did wonder on if the whole “being brought back to life after dying” would be affecting his natural life span and biological functions.

Willow gasped beside him, hands on the seats arms, hair a mess and looking as terrified as he felt.

After a moment of only her haggard breathing and the cars puttering along, slightly slower pace, Wilson cleared his throat.

“Can, can I ask what that was about?” He winced at the ragged drag of a sigh that escaped her, glancing quickly over to see the woman untense and rub a her face, brush her hands over her head and keep them there for a moment. “You almost made me crash.”

Willow didn't speak for a long moment, a tense feeling in the air, the strangeness of this whole situation still sitting on Wilsons shoulders and making him grind his teeth nervously.

He's only known this lady for a week or so, maybe two at most, and this was uncharted territory he was being dragged into.

So what if he felt like he's seen her before, that her face was horribly familiar and how she talked was terribly familiar and sometimes he replied to her as if they were old friends? 

Wilson didn't know her, not at all, he was sure. At least 80% sure, anyway.

“Nightmare.”

Wilson jumped, still kept the car stable and straight even as he jittered for a moment at the sudden sound of her voice, but when he looked at her Willow was not looking at him.

“It was a nightmare.” She stared ahead, wide eyed still, her hands clasped in her lap and looking tense.

Then she shook her head, eyes shut, hands wrapping about herself, and Wilson turned his attention back to the road.

It was good no one else was out here, on this empty mountain road. He was swaying quite terribly over the faded yellow line he was sure he wasn't supposed to be crossing.

“It sounded like a bad one.” Wilson licked his dry, chapped lips, tongue still stinging from where he had bitten it. He didn't feel comfortable driving one handed just yet, but the itch was suddenly very bothersome and he was quick to scratch at his nose, squinting his eyes at the dark asphalt only lit up by the cars headlights ahead of them.  
The tense feeling was fading away, slowly, and after getting both hands rearranged on the wheel Wilson yawned, straining to keep his eyes on the road.

“You could have woken them up.”

Willow shifted in her seat, and Wilson glanced over to see her leaning over and looking at the passengers in the backseat. All he had to do was flick his gaze up to the rearview mirror, which was much easier than twisting around and taking his eyes off of driving.

Both the kids were asleep, the boy right behind him leaning on the girl in the middle, looking as if he was drooling on her shoulder. Sleeping in a driving car was always uncomfortable for Wilson, and he never woke up well in them either (not to mention the car sickness that had plagued him when he had been young); he did hope the two wouldn't be like him.

What where their names again?

Wilson squinted in thought, a little tired and maybe a little exhausted now that his heart had slowed down and the adrenaline from Willow scaring him was fading away. Willow shifted back in her seat, pulled on her seatbelt and let it smack loudly back into her, and Wilson frowned at that but didn't take his eyes off the road.

Ah, Wendy and Webber where their names! The girl's name was fairly normal, though he's never met many Wendys before now, but Webber was an odd one. Wilson was fairly sure that wasn't the boys real name.

His gaze flicked back up to the rearview mirror to look at the last occupant of the little car.

The old man was very much asleep, mouth open and leaning in a very uncomfortable looking position against the car door, every once in awhile snoring softly, and Wilson was fairly certain he wasn't being a good pillow for the girl but Wendy had been the one to fall asleep first on him earlier, when night had started to fall.

The fellow looked like he needed to take a thousand year nap, so it was fairly good luck Willow hadn't woken him. 

Wilson huffed quietly, following the road as it curved about a few times. Mountain roads were always so wiggly.

He still had no idea what to think about this situation really.

In fact, shouldn't the man be in a nursing home somewhere? How old was he even? 

In Wilson's opinion he looked old, and acted like it too. Worse than his own mother, who had never figured out how to email, bless her soul, and also all those old postcards and letters that were now sitting under the crumbled ruin of the house he had been squatting in.

He still felt a small stinging in the back of his eyes whenever he thought about that.

This Maxwell fellow hadn't even known what a computer was, and that was just sad, especially in this day and age. He wouldn't even tell Wilson where he came from.

Willow didn't know either, actually. Wilson glanced over to her, watching as she dug around in her jackets pockets and pulled out her lighter.

“Please don't turn that on.”

He could feel the way she glared at him, and heard the click of its lid being opened, but no flick of the light and that made Wilson untense his shoulders.

He didn't like that Willow had an open flame around her all the time.

Well, that was untrue. The woman rarely ever had the light on, just liked to fiddle with the casing.

It still made him nervous though, and the worst part was that he didn't know why.

He drove in silence, a few more winding paths and a straightaway emerged, the darkness of the forest surrounding this mountain side obscuring everything but the stars and the half moon above. The clicking and clinking of Willows lighter grew into background noise, along with the quiet rumble of the car he was driving.

A part of him was sure it was stolen. Willow hadn't shown him a drivers license, and he didn't quite know if the other man even knew how to drive.

He could probably ask later on, when they got to the closest town this road went to. 

Ah, and now he had to think about that. The kids would need breakfast at some point, and all they had in the car was a half eaten bag of Cracker Jacks, which Willow had quickly claimed as hers.

And then told him that Maxwell didn't like them and had been confused about the code prize, and then very confused about the app she got on her phone from it.

She then went on to explain that he got irritated about the whole thing and that she had already deleted the app and had burned up the code, so no one was a winner now.

Really, Wilson just didn't know how this had happened in a span of the half hour he had with watching the kids play outside the pit stop they had taken a break at.

Willow not sharing the popcorn with him had been a little mean, but Webber had given him a few gummy bears so all's well that ends well he supposed.

But hopefully by morning they'd be in a real town with some restaurants and he'd be able to make sure the kids got actual breakfast, not just a sandwich and some chips.

Good God, Wilson still had no idea why he was doing this. Especially with these kids involved.

He's never really been good with kids, and he had no clue on why they were here now.

The only things he knew were that they had picked Wendy up at some random abandoned bridge and Webber had been wandering around, lost in the middle of the forest, and children really shouldn't be out alone like that and he just didn't know, didn't understand this situation at all-

Wilson took a deep breath, held it in his chest, and slowly let off the gas. There was no reason to be going 70 on an unknown mountain road in the middle the night. Crashing the car was a terrible idea.

He’s already died once, and that should be enough times for a person really. He didn't want the kids to have to go through whatever the hell Maxwell had done to bring him back.

Nope, he didn't want to think about that, not at all.

To distract himself from thoughts of death and things that made no sense that made his head hurt, Wilson glanced over to Willow and her fidgeting hands, the crisp click of the lighters lid opening and closing.

“Your, uh,” Wilson cleared his throat, facing back to the road as she stopped for a moment, “-your nightmare. You want to talk about it?”

He fought the urge to wince, hands clammy on the steering wheel as he grew nervous at the growing silence, realizing that maybe talking about something that made her wake up screaming wasn't the best of ideas, what a great conversation starter Wilson you nincompoop-

“Ya know what, I actually would like that.”

Wilson whooshed out his held breath, blinking away the dryness of his eyes. Willow shifted around in her seat, making him glance over as she leaned the chair slightly back and lifted her feet onto the dashboard. He grimaced at that, some old part of him chidding over feet being placed in such a place, but he pushed it away and focused back on the straightening out road.

“It sure did make you scared.”

“I wasn't scared!” Willow huffed, back to fiddling around with her lighter, and Wilson couldn't see it but she was pouting, eyes narrowed in thought. “I was just...uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?” That was an odd thing to feel in a dream, and an even odder one to scare someone awake with a shout.

“It was just-” Willow seemed to be searching for words, looking up at the ceiling of the car, clicking her lighter open and closed. “-wrong.”

Wilson thought on that for a moment, mind turning even in his tired state, and after a moment he nodded. 

He's had dreams like that before. Never nightmares, just dreams that were...wrong.

He wouldn't admit it, but this past month or so he's been having them more and more often.

“There was this-” Willow raised her hands, caught his attention for a moment as she connected her thumbs and forefingers together in a circle, lighter abandoned in her lap. “-it was like the moon, but it wasn't. All big and glowey in the sky.”

“Cold too.” she said, letting her hands fall back into her lap. “Really cold, like freeze your whole damn arm off cold. I hated it.”

Wilson drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, distracted by the noise for a moment because they reminded him of something but it slipped his mind almost immediately, and grinded his teeth together.

“That doesn't sound that bad.”

Willow blew a quiet raspberry, the click of the lighter rhythmic and sharp in the silence, the darkness outside almost all consuming besides the rays of the cars headlights. 

“See, I hate the cold and it was really dark and everything, but that wasn't the bad part, the wrong part.” There was an emphasis in how she spoke, something heavy and odd and not quite all there, and Wilson glanced over as she sat up.

Willow focused on her lighter, fingers tracing the flower engraving and faded paints, opening and closing it over and over, but after a moment she shut it with a sudden finality.

“There was something out there, in the darkness.”

Wilson blinked out to the road, the sudden shiver up his spine cold and not at all right in a sense. The hair on the back of his neck rose.

“I could feel it, just. Watching me.”

If he squinted his eyes, focused only on the twin beams of light ahead, he'd not see anything he'd not want to see. If he didn't look, it wouldn't truly be there, on the sides of the road.

“Nothin’ happened, it was just completely silent and completely dark.”

Nothing was there, the car was passing nothing by. It was just a particularly thick cover of forest, that was all, some big trees in the way, covering up the sky, that was all.

Night wasn't all consuming blackness, darkness that covered everything but little blips of light. That wasn't how it worked, not at all.

“‘xcept for the light in the sky, but it wasn't a moon.”

Wilson hunched his shoulders, ignored what was looking in as the car raced by.

“Why do you say that?”

“‘cause, in my dream, it blinked at me.”

For a moment, Wilson could almost imagine it, hanging in the sky, a giant eye, watching him.

And then it passed and suddenly he could see the tops of the trees ahead and the starry sky above.

He let out a strained breath, hands tight around the steering wheel, and realized he had been passing over the yellow line again. As he righted the car, Willow had leaned back into her seat, lighter in her hands but not fiddled with anymore, not quite relaxed but less tense.

A slight snore rose up behind them, there was a shifting as the boy snuggled closer to Wendy and thus she snuggled closer to the old man, him still dead to the world.

Wilson sighed, this time just tired, eyes burning and fighting against a yawn, which was in vain as Willow yawned beside him, causing him to do so involuntarily, snapping his jaws shut with a loud clack of noise.

He looked into the rearview mirror, just barely passing over his baggy eyed, pale faced reflection, catching a glimpse of Willows sallow, stressed look, and then the two kids, both gangly and not at all as well cared for as kids should be.

And then Maxwell, the man the mystery and hopefully not some cryptic legend that was here to curse them all.

Out of all of them, he probably looked the worse.

Like some 18th century vampire or something, with that weird suit of his that almost made him look like he should be in a theater play.

When Wilson had first seen him he had thought he'd gone to hell and was being greeted by some horribly malnourished ghoul. Now, he had been losing a massive amount of blood and had been dying at the time, but still.

Not a good first impression.

“Do you…” Wilson paused, thought about what he was going to say as Willow turned her head to look at him, his own still on the road.

“Do you think this will work out?”

The silence after was different, softer, but he could feel the nervous unease underlying its thickness. Willow shifted her gaze to her lighter, tracing its lines slowly.

“What do you mean, what will work out?”

She sounded nonchalant, but Wilson pushed on, his own nervous energy tinging his words along with his determination to try and get an answer for once.

“I mean this whole-” he gestured around for a moment, outside and inside, quickly getting his hand back onto the steering wheel. “-this whole thing, this, this whole trip, everything, everything that has happened, do you think everything will turn out okay?”

He wasn't willing to bring up some things, the things that weren't really there, in the back of his mind, in the shadows of the trees, the whispers and lilting song, in how he knew they were being followed, but no, that was incorrect.

They weren't being followed, and neither was he.

Maxwell was being followed, and Wilson could hear it in the whispers, late at night, late late late, all alone sometimes.

What he couldn't remember was if he heard these things before or after he died for the first time.

He was terrified that Willow could hear them too, that the kids listened too, that Maxwell himself knew, knew that he was mingling whatever was tracking him with Wilson and the other three, but he was even more terrified that Willow didn't hear them at all, that he was alone in this.

That he had finally, truly gone mad, and this was some horrid fever dream, a coma dream as he lay, dying, suffocating on his own fluids under the ruins of the house that wasn't his but was stuffed with everything he had ever owned.

He was denying it, but he couldn't even remember how that house had all his things, or how he had gotten there in the first place.

He couldn't remember his own mothers face, and yet her letters and photos had been all over the place, along with the rest of his research.

What had he even been researching then? Wilson couldn't remember, and the only thing that rose in his mind was “alchemy” and the urge to build something, something magnificent and wonderful and truly, horribly, terribly abominable.

He hoped, he really hoped he wasn't alone in this.

Willow fidgeted, was silent, and Wilson could feel his blood run cold as his question lay unanswered.

Oh God, he was so, very terrified. 

“I think.” Willow drew in a breath, her voice low, quiet, slow. “I think, what will happen, happens. I can't tell you it will be fine.”

He could feel her her gaze on him, watching him tremble and fight against closing his eyes, on letting go of the steering wheel and pressing all his weight on the gas.

“What I can say, though,” Wilson flinched just a bit at the touch of her hand on his shoulder, everything in him tense and shivering and so very afraid, “Is that you're not alone for the ride.”

Wilson wheezed out a sound behind his tightly clenched teeth, easing up on the gas, finally just taking his foot off the petal altogether, maybe feeling a little watery eyed. Willow kept her hand on his shoulder until the car finally rolled almost to a stop, a slight squeak as Wilson pressed on the brakes.

“Ya want me to drive the rest of the night?”

“That would be-” Wilson rubbed a hand over his face, mouth curling to a harsh frown as he squeezed his eyes shut, fighting back against whatever emotion it was that was stuck in his chest, in his throat. “Yes, that would be appreciated. I'm terribly tired.”

Willow was already fiddling with the door handle, finally got it open and swung it out.

“I can tell.”

As they traded sides, Willow giving him a pat on the back as she slid into the driver's seat, Wilson glanced up at the stars and the half moon risen above, the silhouettes of the trees surrounding them.

One of the reasons, he could remember, for moving out in the middle of nowhere was for the night sky. No light pollution, only the stars and celestial designs above him.

And not complete, total, despair laden darkness, filled with eyes.

Wilson shook his head, fought back another yawn, and got back into the car with no incident, Willow already raring to go.

As the car got itself back on the road, lights blazing a bright trail forward and night sky brimming with lights of its own, the darkness under the trees shimmered, thrummed with silent sound.

And then whisked away, disappearing into the night.


End file.
